


Trekstuck

by ThatCrazyCanadian



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-22 04:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatCrazyCanadian/pseuds/ThatCrazyCanadian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the United Federation of Planets is fighting (and losing) a war against the Alternian Empire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Captain’s Log, Stardate 59281.1. The war against the Alternian Empire has entered its third month. It’s not going well for us. The Alternians possess tactical technologies far more advanced than our own. Starfleet Command has assigned all available ships to the war effort. We’re moving out in less than an hour. I don’t know how much of a help we’re going to be. Nova-class starships were not designed for battle, although in the three weeks we’ve been in spacedock, the_ Hawking _has received major tactical upgrades. It’s been strange, not seeing any of the visiting scientists that often walk these decks. Aside from Commanders Strider and Lalonde, I haven’t seen a blue uniform on the_ Hawking _since we docked. I’m just hoping we’ll be assigned as a supply ship, even though I know how unlikely that is._

You save the recording, and blank the monitor. Leaning back in your chair, you sigh deeply. This is not what you signed up for when you joined the Academy. Your combadge chirps, interrupting your thoughts.

“Harley to Egbert!”, your first officer’s voice says. You stand up, and tap the badge.

“Egbert here.”

“Captain, we’re ready to go”, she states, her voice revealing the same worry that you are feeling.

“Very good. I’ll be there shortly”, you reply, tapping the badge again to end the conversation. As you exit the darkened conference room, you can feel the anxiety building up inside you. The bridge doors are located immediately across the hall, and you pause briefly outside them to compose yourself before entering. The moment you enter the room, you are all business.

“Helm. Status”, you enquire of the young British officer sitting at the conn.

He consults his console briefly before turning to you. “Stardock has given us clearance to depart”.

“Good”, you say. “Retract all moorings and take us out.” There is only the slightest jarring as the moorings detach, and you begin to accelerate. The next person you consult is your Ops officer, an Ensign only five years out of the Academy. “Ensign Crocker, have we received word from Command about our assignment?”

“Yes, sir”, she tells you. “We are assigned to the front lines at Cygnia Minor. Starfleet considers this a high-priority area due to the colony in system, and its proximity to the colony on Benecia and Starbase 2.”

You turn back to conn. “How long at maximum warp?”

He performs a few calculations before reading out the results. “At our new maximum speed of Warp 8.7, we should arrive at Cygnia Minor in five weeks and two days”.

“Set course and engage at Warp 8.7.”

“Aye, sir”. With that, you are on your way. You sit down in the Captain’s chair, and prepare for the long journey ahead.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The next five weeks are spent feverishly preparing for arrival at Cygnia Minor. On this particular day, you are down on Deck 7 in Main Engineering.

“...If we reroute warp power through the auxiliary power couplings, could we increase phaser efficiency without reducing deflector strength?”, you enquire of your Chief Engineer, Lt. Commander Roxy Lalonde.

She grimaces. “I don’t know Captain. It might, but there’s also a chance that we would blow out the primary EPS conduits.”

“If we reinforce the interlocks here and here”, you say, gesturing in front of you at the schematic of the ship’s power systems, “We should be able to minimize that risk.”

“Yeah”, she replies. “Yeah, that should work! I’ll get a team on that immediately.”

“Good”, you tell her. “Inform me of any progress.” You barely make it out of Engineering before being intercepted by another member of your senior staff: your Head of Security and Tactical Operations.

“Lieutenant Strider”, you acknowledge.

His orange eyes lock onto you. “Captain”, he says, handing you a PADD. “Here are the specifications of the modified torpedos, as you requested.

You take it, scanning the rows of figures. “Thank you, Lieutenant”, you say, heading towards the deck’s sole turbolift. Within seconds of entering the lift, you arrive at Deck 3. You head into sickbay, where your CMO is sitting at his desk, looking astoundingly bored. As soon as he sees you enter the room, he starts ranting.

“Egbert, it seems like everyone on this goddamn ship has something to do except me! No patients, no experiments, no-” You cut him off, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Well Dave, you _could_ be converting Science Labs 1 and 2 to Sickbay extensions, as I asked you to.” His eyes widen as you say that, and you can tell he’s panicking.

“Shit! I completely forgot! I’m-” You stop him again, waving his apology off.

“It’s no problem. Just get on it now. And don’t forget again!”, you say, wagging a playful finger in his face.

“Aye aye, Captain”, he replies with a two-fingered salute. You roll your eyes and exit the room. As you wander aimlessly down a corridor, you note the technicians prying off wall panels and making adjustments to the delicate iso-organic circuitry inside. You are about to enter the security complex to check on the status of the upgrades when the corridor lights dim, replaced by flashing red lights and a deafening klaxon. Commander Harley’s voice blares across the intercom:

_“Red Alert! All hands to battle stations, Captain Egbert to the bridge!”_ All around you, the gold-shirted technicians abandon the wall panels, and begin to run to their respective battle stations. You sprint into the nearest turbolift, emerging seconds later on the bridge.

“Report!”, you say, the second you step foot on Deck 1. Ensign Crocker turns to you, and says,

“The fleet at Cygnia Minor reports an Alternian battlecruiser entering sensor range.” Immediately, you turn to your conn officer.

“Lieutenant, what is our current ETA at Cygnia Minor?”

He consults his panel. “34 minutes, 46 seconds.”

“And the Alternian ship?”

He looks at the display again. When he looks back at you, you see the concern in his eyes. “26 minutes, 14 seconds.”

“Can we increase speed?”

He shakes his head. “Not with our current engine configuration. You would have to get Engineering to modify it. Which I don’t recommend.”

“Recommendation noted”, you tell him. “I’ll be in Engineering. Commander, you have the bridge.”

~~~~~

For the second time in less than half an hour, you find yourself standing in Engineering, consulting with Lt. Commander Lalonde.

“Captain, the modifications we already have in place have been straining the engines to their limit! We simply cannot go any faster, and maintain a safety factor!”

“We can’t afford a safety factor”, you tell her.

She sighs. “If I dump all reserve power into the core, I should be able to push our speed up to Warp 9.2. But we’ll only be able to maintain that speed for seven, maybe eight minutes before the engines automatically shut down.”

“Will we get there on time?”

She pauses. Not a good sign. “No. We’ll still be four minutes behind the Alternian ship.”

You stare at her. “Four minutes is better than nothing. Get started on the modifications immediately.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I can't write really long chapters. Bluh. Sorry if it was a bit boring. It'll get more exciting within the next few chapters.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so I meant to post this a lot earlier, but with school and a convention coming up, I've had a lot to do.  
> Also tumblr.  
> Mostly tumblr, actually.

You return to the bridge. Minutes pass in antagonizing silence. Then, you receive the call you’ve been waiting for:

_“Engineering to Bridge. Modifications are in place, and ready.”_

You waste no time, jumping up, and practically shouting at Lieutenant English, “Increase speed to maximum, now!” The ship groans in protest as its engines push it far beyond the speeds it was designed for. It’s not long before your next report from Engineering.

 _“You don’t have much more time Captain!”_ , Commander Lalonde tells you. You hear an explosion in the background. _“At this rate, the engines will shut down in less than a minute, and then we’ll be stuck with only impulse power until they cool down.”_

“Lieutenant”, you inquire of your conn officer. “How long until we reach Cygnia Minor?”

“48 seconds, sir.” You slump back into your chair with relief. _“Just enough”_ , you think. 48 seconds later, the Hawking slams out of warp with a resounding BANG, the sudden stop throwing the crew to the ground. You have no time to rest though. Lieutenant Strider is already back on his feet, reading out the latest tactical reports from his display.

“The Alternian battlecruiser is about 12 kilometers off the port bow. There are already several Starfleet ships engaging it, but they are all in bad shape.” His panel beeps. “We are receiving a hail from the lead ship.”

“Onscreen”, you tell him, turning towards said screen. The connection is awful, but you can just barely make out the badly damaged bridge of a Defiant-class starship.

 _“Captain, thank God you’re here----badly damaged------outnumbered-----all the help we can get!”_ Suddenly, the transmission is cut off.

“Get it back”, you tell Lieutenant Strider.

He stares at his panel, then looks at you. “Sir, their warp core has gone critical.” You turn back to the screen just in time to see the small ship erupt into flames, and then explode. The shockwave jars the _Hawking_ , but not enough to cause any damage.

You sigh before giving the order that may kill you and your entire crew.

“Take us in closer, target all weapons at the battlecruiser, and fire at will.”

~~~~

It’s only been five minutes since you engaged the Alternian ship in battle, and you’re already losing. Badly. “Shields down to 36 percent!”, Lt. Strider shouts as another blast rocks the ship. “Make that 27! We can’t last much longer, Captain!” A report from Engineering confirms that.

_“I’ve got plasma leaks all over the place! I can’t concentrate on fixing the warp engines if Engineering is disintegrating around me!”_

Conn officer English turns to you, and says, “Captain, there is a class 2 nebula located 700,000 kilometers starboard. We can reach it at full impulse in less than 30 seconds, and it should obscure our sensor image from the Alternians.” 

“Set a course at maximum impulse.” The battlecruiser slides off the viewscreen as the ship turns, replaced by a luminous nebula. It grows larger on the screen, eventually completely filling it.

“We’ve reached the center of the nebula, Captain”, Lieutenant English informs you.

“Hold this position, and inform me of any changes in the movement of the Alternian ship. I’ll be in Engineering.”

~~~~

Once again, you are consulting with Commander Lalonde in Engineering.

“We barely managed to get a complete sensor scan during the whole seven minutes we were in battle before absconding”, she tells you, “but from what we have, their systems are nothing I’ve ever seen.” She pulls up a schematic on the terminal you are sitting at. “There are no visible engines or other means of propulsion, and no computer core.”

You stare at the schematic. “How can a ship with no engines or computer core even function?”

She throws her arms into the air. “I have no idea, Captain. From what I can tell, these ships have no weaknesses whatsoever.”

Suddenly, you think you see something in the schematic. “Wait. Switch to a narrow EM band.” She does though, confirming your suspicion. “Right there”, you say, pointing to a bright spot on a lower deck. “A sharp spike in narrow-band EM emissions. If anything, I’d say that powers their ship.”

You can see her brain working with this idea. “You’re right. In fact, similar lower-level emissions run throughout the ship. It looks like a power grid. There’s only one anomalous thing. The only known source of this kind of emission is the brain.”

“Are you saying the ship’s running on brain waves?”, you ask her, incredulous.

“Essentially, yes, only hugely magnified.” She switches between several other views. “And it isn’t only the power. It looks like all of their systems are completely biological.”

Raising an eyebrow, you reply, “Well, that would explain their ship’s incredible response times.”

A grin grows on Commander Lalonde’s face. “But a completely biological system would be very prone to hacking.”

Realizing what she is implying, you start to smile too. “Get on it Commander! We still might get out of this one alive!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> D: I'm so sorry about the lateness of this! School is taking up much more of my time than I thought it would. Thus, this chapter is a lot shorter and later than it should be.
> 
> _:(´□`」 ∠):_

Unsurprisingly, it isn’t long before you assemble the senior staff in the conference room to discuss your Chief Engineer’s plan. You stand at the head of the table, and look around the room before starting.

“Commander Lalonde has developed a plan that she believes could incapacitate the Alternian battlecruiser.” This statement causes a stir in the room. “Their ship’s systems are completely biological. The Commander believes that she can open a path into their central computer that would allow us to hijack their systems.” You turn to her, motioning for her to take over.

“Thank you, Captain. As you just heard, my plan would allow us to commandeer their central computer system.” She pauses, glancing around the room. “This is not as difficult as it may seem, as their systems are entirely biological.” Pulling up a schematic of the _Hawking’s_ computer systems, she continues: “With an iso-organic computer system, such as the one we have on this ship, there is still a capability to create safeguards against hijackings such as the one I am proposing. However,” the display changes to the computer systems of the Alternian battlecruiser, “an entirely biological system does not have that capacity. Essentially, all we need to do is open a pathway that will allow us to route commands through their systems.” Members of the staff exchange places. Then, Doctor Strider speaks up.

“I highly doubt it will be that easy,” he says, doubt in his voice. “If it were, why can’t we establish a wireless connection with a human brain? What you’re talking about is no different than telepathy.”

Commander Lalonde sighs. “And yet there are several species who demonstrate the ability to communicate in such a manner. I assume you have access to brain scans of Betazoids?”

“Um,” Strider responds. “Yes, I do. Why do you ask?”

She smiles. “Because I’m gonna to need access them to design my invasion program. Examine the roots of telepathy in order to design a program to emulate it.”

Resigned, the Doctor just rolls his eyes. “Fiiine. I’ll have them ready whenever you need them.”

“Right away will do just fine,” she tells him, smirking. Internally, you laugh at your CMO’s shocked expression before concluding the meeting.

“Alright, I expect full cooperation from all of you on this project. Even you, Dave,” you say, only half-joking. His face reddens.

“Shut the fuck up, Egbert”, he snaps.

“That’s _Captain_ , to you when we’re on duty,” you reply, your grin growing. Your ship’s counselor, Lt. Commander Rose Lalonde, groans.

“Get a room, you two”, she gripes. And with that final comment, the plan is set into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaah, so I really will try to update faster and get the chapters longer. The plot's just about to get a lot more exciting.
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> Yeah, I'll get Chapter 5 up soon! I promise!


End file.
